Clean energy

There isn’t a specific path for the state’s vision of zeroing out carbon emissions by 2050 and ensuring areas overburdened by past pollution fully benefit from the growing green economy.

Starting this month, the utility company said the bill for the typical Metro East customer will rise $52 a month ($626 a year) because the cost of generating it is much higher.

“The new green economy can be as exclusive and as unjust as the old one,” said the Rev. Rodrick Burton. He and others want local residents to decide how the region responds to climate change.

The proposed clean-energy transmission line would stretch from Kansas to Indiana.

All private coal plants in the state must eliminate carbon emissions by 2030. Publicly owned ones have until 2045 to achieve the same goal.

The Metro East coal-fired power plant must cut emissions 45% by 2035 and eliminate them completely by 2045 if it wants to remain open.

Lawmakers and EV companies, like Rivan Automotive, say the provisions in the new law are the next step in promoting Illinois as "the Silicon Valley of EVs."

The law puts the state on a path to reach 100% clean energy by 2050, with the goal of zeroing out carbon emissions by 2045.

After a summer of stalemate on major energy and climate legislation that seeks to put Illinois on the path to 100% renewable energy by 2050, the Illinois House on Thursday night finally pushed through a compromise set to get approval from both the Senate and Gov. JB Pritzker.

Negotiators backed down from a plan that would have forced coal plants to close by 2035.